My Sigma DP2 Merrill was delayed so I did not pick it as i planed so I got a RX100 to give it a run yesterday, it was quite fun and 2 hours walking around the street the RX100 is pretty nice and intuitive to use, the camera feels nice in hand. It also feel a bit small but since I use iPhone to shoot sometimes so it is still tolerable, image quality is nice, probably the best compact camera I have since Contax T3.

Today out of curiosity I shot the same scene with my Olympus E-M5 and the RX100 and printed them at 17x22 after matching wb, tonality, etc. as best I could in ACR and uprezzing to 360 ppi with Genuine Fractals, adding final sharpening, my normal workflow. I had to use the ooc jpegs instead oF raw, though.

The RX100 is amazingly good, you can see more noise in the shadows (I shot the OM-D at iso 200, f5.6 and the RX100 at iso 125, f4), tonality is not as smooth, and there's a greater degree of sharpness falloff as you move towards the edges, but considering what it is, the RX is totally impressive. Unless you are looking for them, you are hard pressed to see the differences on the print. At on the wall viewing distances, they look identical. That's not something I could say with my Canon S90.

The bad news is that my RX is noticably softer on the right than the left, so I have to try another copy of the camera....

But I am extremely pleased, I now have a carry-everywhere camera which will let me make display prints if I run across that great shot when out with the wife, etc.

I've been playing with my RX100 quite a lot these days, whenever I go out I take it with me.Now I can say for sure that I can get some shots that I couldn't have taken with Canon S100. The look of the photos is more towards a large sensor camera vs a very good P&S.

One of the blemishes is that I get a lot of shots that are not sharp, despite decent exposure times. I don't know if it's also my technique but probably is mostly that the stabilization is below what Canon has. Many of the blurred shots were at macro distance, most of the others I can blame them on the kids moving which brings me to the fact that I can't set a minimum shutter speed in aperture mode.

I've been playing with my RX100 quite a lot these days, whenever I go out I take it with me.Now I can say for sure that I can get some shots that I couldn't have taken with Canon S100. The look of the photos is more towards a large sensor camera vs a very good P&S.

One of the blemishes is that I get a lot of shots that are not sharp, despite decent exposure times. I don't know if it's also my technique but probably is mostly that the stabilization is below what Canon has. Many of the blurred shots were at macro distance, most of the others I can blame them on the kids moving which brings me to the fact that I can't set a minimum shutter speed in aperture mode.

For the Macro shots, are you sure you are simply not just below the minimal focusing distance of the lens?

It seems that it finds the focus point most of those shots (both on the LCD and by confirmation of the focus point). I don't know if it just thinks so instead of really being focused. Probably I should try more the manual focus for macro, after all I did set the Ok button to toggle between auto and manual focus.

When I does get the focus right it can make very nice shots, here are a couple of examples, ooc jpg

got mine yesterday and just finished some resolution tests - WOW. very good corner-corner sharpness at ALL focal lengths and apetures (up to diffaction). even if the RX 100 jpegs have more sharpening than the RAW conversions from my test of the Panny GX1 with pancake zoom (which got returned for resonance blur), the RX 100 is sharper corner - corner. as expected, diffraction starts at f8 but only just measurable. i completely agree with all the excited reviews i've read.

as one reviewer said, there's no reason for most people to buy a low-end mirrorless

of course i've got a few gripes about the fiddly controls (but they're no worse than other fiddly controls and better than some), lack of grip (which is really stupid), lack of external charger - how much more could that have cost than the equally bulky USB supply? maybe Sony is intentionally trying not to kill the low end of the NEX line. i could easily see using a little larger camera of this quality - with secure grip, more accesable control functions (and a rear focus button), hot shoe for a real flash - and EVF as a primary camera for many situations - and i'd be willing to pay for it.

if the RX 100 jpegs have more sharpening than the RAW conversions from my test of the Panny GX1 with pancake zoom (which got returned for resonance blur), the RX 100 is sharper corner - corner.

Hmm, my OMD and Panny pancake zoom (no blur issue) at iso 200 f5.6 clearly beats the RX100 at iso 125 f4 in the corners and just edges it in the center. That's with OOC jpegs. Not to say the RX100 isn't superb for what it is.

Using JPGS is really no way to test the potential of a camera. Download a trial of Raw Developer, try convolution sharpening at default, and (unless you have a bad sample of the camera, or you messed up with the shot) prepare to be amazed. I was and I've been doing this a few years now with everything up to 10x8 back in the film days, and IQ 180 backs just lately.

Hmm, my OMD and Panny pancake zoom (no blur issue) at iso 200 f5.6 clearly beats the RX100 at iso 125 f4 in the corners and just edges it in the center. That's with OOC jpegs. Not to say the RX100 isn't superb for what it is.

- In terms of image quality, the RX100 is overall more detailed, DR seems to be pretty similar (slight edge in favor of the J1 perhaps). I feel that the J1 is a bit better at high ISO, but would need a detailed comparison to confirm this very intuitive impression,- In terms of AF, the J1 is far ahead in terms of speed in low light situations and on moving subjects, but the RX100 is pretty good on static subjects except when it is very dark. The face detection capability of the J1 is superior and seems to pretty much focus all by itself when I want more often than the RX100, - In terms of quality of exposure, the J1 seems to be overall more accurate (it is the best exposing camera I have ever seen, clearly ahead of the D800 for example), but the RX100 is still pretty good,- In terms of lens, the RX100 distorts very heavily on the wide end, but this is well corrected in in-camera jpgs, the 10-30 of the J1 being less compact, is better corrected natively but does still need software correction anyway so we have pretty much a draw here.

So all in all, I will probably use the RX100 when compactness is key (meaning as a always carry around camera) or for landscape kind of work and the J1 otherwise (that is when my wife is not using it).

I'll look at raw image quality more in depth when DxO will be supporting the RX100.